Gunnelaurentia genus nova (Umerostentida: Bilourida: Biligamentum: Bisigunnidae)

Author
Affiliation

Lemuria

Independent researcher; Manila, Philippines

Published

March 25, 2026

Abstract

We describe the new family Bisigunnidae and its first genus, Gunnelaurentia, based on the pattern Simplicity 9015, and designate the holotype as Gunnelaurentia johnsonia sp. nov., an off-shoulder dress sewn by the American sewist Lauren Johnson in July 2024.

Keywords

simplicity 9015, lauren johnson, home sewing, vintage sewing, gunnelaurentia, umerostentida, biligamentum

1 Background

In 1979, Simplicity, one of the Big Four, released a pattern numbered 9015, an off-shoulder dress featuring bilateral single straps with a medial ribbon (referred to in the pattern as “shoulder ties”). There exist multiple Simplicity patterns numbered 9015; hereafter, we use the term “Simplicity 9015” to mean only the pattern from Gunne Sax released by Simplicity, numbered 9015.

1.1 Lauren Johnson

Lauren Johnson (Instagram: @justlaurenjohnson) is an American sewist from Little Rock, Arkansas. She owns the indie pattern company Bouquet Pattern Co. (https://bouquetclothing.com), which sells three sewing patterns, none of which have received taxonomic treatments so far.

In 2018, she created the blog Bouquet, which while no longer live, remains available on the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. On YouTube, as @LaurenJohnson (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCY3XsTBr0lJPMXqk4S5FX8g), she has ~60,000 subscribers and ~570 videos.

1.1.1 Equipment

As seen in Johnson (2024b), Johnson owns a Kenmore sewing machine.

1.1.2 Sewing the dress

In July 2024, Johnson began sewing the dress for her birthday (Johnson 2024a). She also released a 26-minute YouTube video, SEWING MY BIRTHDAY DRESS! Vintage Gunne Sax Meets Bridgerton: Sew with Me!1 (Johnson 2024b).

As the pattern was not to her size, she graded the pattern. She created a toile (muslin2) using an old bedsheet for the bodice and lining. The toile was eventually incorporated into the main garment as the lining (Johnson 2024b).

1.2 Taxonomic history

We discovered Gunnelaurentia johnsonia through browsing the social media presence of the American sewist Lauren Johnson, who we discovered while researching Nina Lee’s Kew dress for our March 2026 monograph (see ). In 2018, she sewed a Kew dress with flutter sleeves, most similar to Helikewisia Lemuria, 2026 and incertae sedis within Kewthea; which was featured on Nina Lee’s blog (Chang-Smith 2018). Further research into Johnson led to the discovery of Gunnelaurentia, which we now describe in this paper.

We describe the new suborder Biligasimplicia, containing the family Bisigunnidae, which contains the new monotypic genus Gunnelaurentia, and the species Gunnelaurentia johnsonia.

2 Methods

The author conducted his research on a computer running Ubuntu 24.04, with the XFCE desktop environment. He used the SHA2-256 algorithms to compute the cryptographic hashes of the photographic specimens he examined for species descriptions. He used Firefox 139.0.4, Ristretto 0.13.1, and Quarto 1.9.35. His monitor is a 55.8 cm (22 in) wide, 30.48 cm (12 in) tall, 63.5 cm (25 in) diagonal monitor, the NVISION S2515-B 25” IPS with a 100Hz refresh rate. He is not colorblind. He is near sighted and wears glasses.

The versions of the sha256sum and openssl utilities on his system at the time of the paper are given in the below terminal output:

$ sha256sum --version
sha256sum (GNU coreutils) 9.4
Copyright (C) 2023 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

Written by Ulrich Drepper, Scott Miller, and David Madore.
$ openssl --version
OpenSSL 3.5.0 8 Apr 2025 (Library: OpenSSL 3.5.0 8 Apr 2025)
$ sha256sum /usr/bin/sha256sum /usr/bin/openssl
f293048f656688883ee919eb3f4b12926aaa13362de0eb6e3b5716b915b18b35  /usr/bin/sha256sum
724acbe911513d13f52bae0b8969b20336cd8618fc67898a6bf7847bf1a270ad  /usr/bin/openssl

3 Species description

3.1 Suborder Biligasimplicia

Biligasimplicia Lemuria, 2026; subordo novus

Taxonomic placement: Placed under the order Biligamentum Lemuria, 2026.

Diagnosis: Phylogenetically, characterized by descent from any Simplicity pattern; and phenetically, meeting the requirements of its parent taxa.

Etymology: Biliga- from Biligamentum + simplicia, pseudo-Latin feminine form of “Simplicity”.

3.2 Family Bisigunnidae

Bisigunnidae Lemuria, 2026; familia nova

Taxonomic placement: Placed under the suborder Biligasimplicia Lemuria, 2026.

Diagnosis: Phylogenetically, characterized by descent from any Simplicity pattern by Gunne Sax.

Etymology: Bi- from Biligamentum, si- from simplicia, gunni from Gunne, and -idae (family suffix).

3.3 Genus Gunnelaurentia

Gunnelaurentia Lemuria, 2026; gen. nov.

Taxonomic placement: Placed under the family Bisigunnidae Lemuria, 2026.

Type species: Gunnelaurentia johnsonia, see Section 3.3.1.

Diagnosis: Phylogenetically, characterized by descent from the Simplicity 9015 pattern.

Etymology: Gunne from Gunne Sax + Laurentia, pseudo-Latin feminine form of Laurentius, the name from which Lauren originated. Pronounced /ˌgʌ.niː.lə.ˈɹɛn.ʃ(i)ə/.

3.3.1 Gunnelaurentia johnsonia

Gunnelaurentia johnsonia Lemuria, 2026; sp. nov.

Holotype: Lauren SGS9015.2024.72419GJ3 — Photograph. 1440×1800. Ventral view. Subject’s head slightly angled, her left arm raised and curved on neck; hair tied dorsally. Gunnelaurentia johnsonia wb. Lauren.J., 2024. © Lauren Johnson or unknown photographer, 2024, all rights reserved.

Description: Off-shoulder dress. Skirt terminates at ankle-level (maxi). Elastic at superior edge of bodice. Flounce hangs from sleeve, terminating within distal upper arm. Terminates superior to bust when arms adducted. Blue satin elastic ribbon with lateral stitches, and lace trim from JoAnn at inferior end. Two elastic bands inferior to inframammary fold. Dorsal medial zipper. Dorsal fabric band with bow-like tie slightly lateral to zipper, on wearer’s left. Fabric band drapes inferiorly and terminates around gluteal region. Straps. Bilateral single straps, ribbon tied medially. No adjustment clips. Straps run at slight diagonal angle across scapula. Fabric. Bridgerton cotton from Liberty Fabrics. Floral. Bouquets of yellow and red flowers tied at stems with blue ribbon tied as a bow. No known correspondence to biological taxa.

Etymology: Johnson + -ia, feminine suffix. Pronounced /ˌgʌ.niː.lə.ˈɹɛn.ʃ(i)ə dʒɔn.ˈsɑː.niə/.

Remarks:

  • Johnson acquired the lace trim on clearance for US$2.49 at JoAnn Fabrics, which fully closed in May 2025, ~11 months after she published her video on sewing G. johnsonia.

Specimens examined:

4 Appendix

4.1 Person abbreviations

In this paper, we establish the new person abbreviation Lauren.J. for Lauren Johnson.

4.2 Image specimens

  • Lauren SGS9015.2024.72419GJ
  • Lauren SGS9015.2024.10443GJ
  • Lauren SGS9015.2024.12171GJ
  • Lauren SGS9015.2024.27800GJ
  • Lauren SGS9015.2024.71406GJ

4.3 Acknowledgements

We thank Lauren Johnson for sharing her sewing process and her creativity with the world on her social media pages. And we thank Nina Lee for creating the pattern that triggered the butterfly effect that led us to discover Lauren Johnson’s flutter-sleeve Kew dress and eventually, Gunnelaurentia johnsonia.

4.4 Information

Lemuria’s (Informal) Journal of Clothing Taxonomy is the gray literature journal of the First Lemurian Clothing Taxonomy, a system by Lemuria to assign Latin names to dresses using biological methods. The author, known mononymically as just Lemuria, is an Filipino programmer and independent gray literature researcher from Manila.

Disclaimer: Lemuria’s (Informal) Journal of Clothing Taxonomy is a non-peer-reviewed, single-author, citizen science/gray literature publication with no institutional backing.

Publisher article ID: 2026.0006

At publication, the journal did not have a DOI prefix.

Work began on the paper on 2026-03-21. Descriptions were completed and proofreading began on 2026-03-25. Proofreading was completed and the paper was published the same day.

Visit us at: https://lct01.lemuria.ph

© Lemuria 2026. All original text and image content by Lemuria is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, unless explicitly noted. Linked images and other content are © their respective owners or copyright holders.

References

Chang-Smith, Nina. 2018. “Kew Dress - ALL the Hacks!” Nina Lee, August 14. https://www.ninalee.co.uk/blogs/blog/kew-dress-all-the-hacks.
Johnson, Lauren. 2024a. “I Wanted to Use This Beautiful @Libertyfabrics Bridgerton Cotton for a Floaty Summer Dress, and i Thought This Vintage Gunne Sax Pattern Was the Perfect Fit for My Birthday This Year! 💐✨🩷 You Can Watch the Whole Process over on YouTube!” July 27. https://www.instagram.com/p/C98OKOEykv-/.
Johnson, Lauren. 2024b. SEWING MY BIRTHDAY DRESS! 🎀 🍰💐✨ Vintage Gunne Sax Meets Bridgerton: Sew with Me! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzkJ-26Bd64.
Johnson, Lauren. 2024c. “Vintage Gunne Sax Meets @Libertyfabrics x @Bridgertonnetflix 💐✨ i Love How This Dress Turned Out!” July 28. https://www.instagram.com/p/C9-GM1BgaGX/.

Footnotes

  1. Emojis removed due to font incompatibility.↩︎

  2. The American English term. “Toile” is the standard LCT-01 term.↩︎

  3. SGS stands for “Simplicity Gunne Sax”.↩︎

Reuse

Citation

BibTeX citation:
@online{2026,
  author = {, Lemuria},
  publisher = {Lemuria},
  title = {*Gunnelaurentia* Genus Nova {(Biligamentum:}
    {Biligasimplicia:} {Bisigunnidae)}},
  date = {2026-03-25},
  address = {Philippines},
  url = {https://lct01.lemuria.ph/articles/2026/2026.0006-gunnelaurentia_johnsonia.html},
  langid = {en},
  abstract = {We describe the new family Bisigunnidae and its first
    genus, *Gunnelaurentia*, based on the pattern Simplicity 9015, and
    designate the holotype as *Gunnelaurentia johnsonia* sp. nov., an
    off-shoulder dress sewn by the American sewist Lauren Johnson in
    July 2024.}
}
For attribution, please cite this work as:
Lemuria. (2026) 2026. “*Gunnelaurentia* Genus Nova (Biligamentum: Biligasimplicia: Bisigunnidae).” March 25; Lemuria, March 25. https://lct01.lemuria.ph/articles/2026/2026.0006-gunnelaurentia_johnsonia.html.